In-depth DVD and movie reviews - the JBL sound!

[JBL 4645]

So whats up with the Dr Helen Noel avatar?

Hi Al

Well sported! You must be secret Trekkie! I doubt most here would have guessed that.

I was watching “Dagger of the mind” a few nights ago and Dr. Helen Noel damn hot! How come Kirk always get the hot women?

[JBL 4645]

Oh, I think we can pretty much guarantee that she'll want to go back in. Don't you, Jack?
Philip FitzRoyce:

I’ve really gotten into JAWS 3 with at least 5 viewings over Tron Legacy its odd how Dolby vintage films tend to rule over a new bluray dts release?

Mixed and recoded in Dolby Stereo by the Minkler family, Bob Minkler, Lee Minkler, Michael Minkler who also worked on STAR WARS and original Tron.

The LCR has fair openness to it, main characters principle dialogue is mostly centred with a few occasional voice pans. Sound effects from dolphin tapping its nose against a cage centre that bridges between main ocean is then heard over on left while it, continues to tap its nose against the cage.

I guess some of the shots towards the end when the shark blows up pieces of shark fly overhead on monaural matrix surrounds uniformly.

It’s sometimes laughable when one of the works who got slightly chewed up by Bruce, floats outside while girls scream their heads off inside an underwater tube tunnel.

The image is bit fuzzy look I guess this, is due to the 3D film process still looks great in scope 2.35:1.

Lows only get as near to around 30Hz thou mostly around 40Hz when I viewed it spectrum lab.

I like Philip FitzRoyce chactutre played by the late (Simon MacCorkindale) the accent crakes me up very upper class British, guy.

Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett Jr) is funny while trying to play serious and keeping his, cool while great white swims around crewing up, the park one person at time.

I think the sound of the shark chewing on FitzRoyce is sick it’s all-around like being in the JAWS mouth itself. How this, got a PG rating yet Jaws the Revenge (1987) gets a PG-13 or 12 certificate for today yet on its UK release receives a PG.

Some of the JAWS effects can be felt as Bruce flexes his Jaws on on-swimming dolphins. Depressurizing the water tank with water drooping around equally sounds neat as Mike Brody and Kathryn (Bess Armstrong) exit the tank. Bruce pops into room for quick snack of leg or two, damn this, shark as tapeworm!

I still think JAWS blowing up in the first one is by far the most tense ending, JAWS 3 blowing-up is slack and I can only imagine what it most have looked in 3-D as jaws and teeth fly towards the screen then pause, like saying “hey that’s 3D”!

Wow I’m surprised it raked in any money at all, looks like it paid well even if, the shark looked more faker than before on some of the underwater superimposing shots.

Box Office
Budget: $20,500,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $13,422,500 (USA) (24 July 1983)
Gross: $87,987,055 (Worldwide)

[JBL 4645]

Ain't she sweet
Walt Kowalski

I picked up GRAN TORINO (2008) bluray 6track DOLBY STEREO DIGITAL TrueHD

I guess this, would be another interesting of Clint’s performance I’ll check it later in the day.


Wow Clint does it again. it was entertaining and Eastwood never fails to deliver good directing and performances from the cast.

Walt Kowalski a bitter hard working man now retired who fought in the Korean War and doesn’t much like his neighbours but soon has change of heart.

Filmed with anamorphic lenses and framed in 2.35:1 scope colour balance is fine

Sound is fairly open from ambient effects its mostly driven by dialogue high tweeting bird sounds can be heard clearly traffic sounds flow from side to side chapter 7, a gangs car pulls away from left sidewall surrounds to front left sounded convincing. LFE.1 accompanied the LCR fronts when called for.

[Eaulive]

Amazing....

[Allanvh5150]

Hi Al

Well sported! You must be secret Trekkie! I doubt most here would have guessed that.

I was watching “Dagger of the mind” a few nights ago and Dr. Helen Noel damn hot! How come Kirk always get the hot women?

Not so much a secret.......

[JBL 4645]

Not so much a secret.......

Hey Al
Well I know you’re into Space1999.

[JBL 4645]

It sure looks beautiful. God. Sometime I wish I could stay up here.
Col. Jason Halsey

Final Approach flew in this morning on ntsc laserdisc.

I first came across the film on VHS PAL rental some 10 years ago and must have hired it out 4 times each rental was for 1 week and the last 30 mins I played over and over and started to ware the tape down.

I’ve played side 2 over and over for the same last 30min thou the SR-71 aerial sequence with amazing Dolby Stereo film mix in PCM bursts out with SR-71 afterburner jolt when called for.

The film is rare for widescreen laserdisc scope 2.35:1 as it’s never been released on DVD much less bluray since its laserdisc street release (08/07/1992).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101874/

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/23524/...Approach-(1992)


Cinema Digital Sound (CDS) thou it was ill-fainted from the moment it went out the door the format wasn’t given thought for analogue backward compatibility and only lasted short few years before it was abandoned.

Six-track split surround was produced for the CDS 35mm and Dolby SR analogue for 70mm release magnetic six-track Dolby stereo (SR no nothing to do SR-71)

http://www.in70mm.com/library/process/cds/index.htm

Final Approach was also given
http://www.in70mm.com/library/blow_up/year/1991.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Digital_Sound

Cinema Digital Sound Theatres
http://www.in70mm.com/library/cinemas/cds.htm

70mm and digital sound
http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/199...ital/index.htm

[JBL 4645]

The laserdisc image quality is top notch for the standards format no laser rot has been reported on this, film.

Audio quality is soft level for dialogue scenes thou does rise in moderate loud level while (James Sikking) and (Hector Elizondo) wrestle in a fight over his, confusion why is he there what is he doing there? Dr. Dio Gottlieb is helping Col. Jason Halsey to reconstitute his past.

The SR-71 sequences where the afterburners throttle up for full roaring thundering sub bass extension feels great.

I’d have to run a few moments on spectrum lab it seems like it only goes down to 30Hz thou it might drop down lower?

Matrix surrounds is bit confusing to distinguish rear surround over common crosstalk I can pick out a few steered rear pans flight controller voices heard on the surrounds, it would be far easier with the DVD that is itching for Dolby digital 6channel discrete.

At least I can play this, ( over and over) without wearing down a single scene.

[JBL 4645]

Digital camera has slightly produce some artefacts from the CRT at close up for screen capture I could improve it. This only shows the scene at side 2 from 28:00min sub bass extension SW-remix at 0db on the fader sub bass set at 0db.

I have to go though the whole film there might a deep low elsewhere on the Dolby mix.

Side2, 30:20 Christ everything is full of static electricity when the SR-71 is hit by lighting the surrounds rumble for brief moment with an alarm sound.

Well this bird drops down near to 20Hz and that’s plenty low enough I don’t plan to run this at 126db (it handled well 10 years ago at that level) thou I’m tempted for the afterburner tests

[JBL 4645]

116db is the near limit (I don’t want to over taxi the Alesis RA300 into clip) I guess it was down to room size at my other digs that gave an extra 10db boast room gain. The afterburner vibrates my home even doors one floor below. It flexes the kitchen wall with a few items rattling in the cupboards.

The expander mode on MDX4600 set to full cuts off lows at given threshold until level exceeds it sub bass extension cuts in nicely kinder like LFE.1 only I’d imagine the LFE.1 track on the film to be bit lower down from LCR guess I’d have to wait until the studio gets around to releasing it on DVD.

One scene when the SR-71 takes off the JBL sub remains in calm sub bass extension mode until the mix rises over threshold at 26:32 when it roars down the runway the sub slowly rises up with rumble on the chest.

Voices of flight controllers are positioned left to right and centre to surround thou some voices in the surrounds may not be intentional on 6track mix.

I’d have to play the final last 25 min on the video projector later on.

[JBL 4645]

Wow this film beats Tron Legacy into the dust! I’ve had it practically running since around 11:00am and its now gone past 10:26pm and I need some catnaps I’ll come back for some more SR-71 sub bass later on.

[JBL 4645]

There’s lots of cool sounding moments in TOP GUN one scene is where Jester is over-flown by Maverick sending his jet fighter into roll the interior cockpit has whooshing air rush swirling around or rather side to side of the LCR along with split-stereo surrounds,

The scene works okay but something is missing giving the height of the screen of in some cinemas or homes or generally the image itself.

9 screen channels would work well as the sound whooshes from

Right upper front quickly dropping down to middle right then into right lower then over to lower front to left lower front quickly passing up middle left and top left height if anyone can picture a 9 screen front array with Jesters voice in the centre middle front.

I can’t think of anyway way at present to trick or get the sound to move in that style and it would be neat thou it might create a holy mess of sound and it has to be done discretely.

The illusion still works but even the surrounds are primate now maybe 30 directional channels

9 screen front
3 channel left surround wall
3 channel right surround wall
9 channel rear wall
3 channel overhead surround
3 channel below floor surround
and few more extra LFE channels

So this, way the sound will literally spiral swirl around rather than the basic locations where its been playing at for past several decades.

[JBL 4645]

Picked up some Dirty bluray bargains this morning at HMV well at least they have DOLBY TrueHD yippee!

Dirty Harry (1971) first saw this on VHS rental way back around early 1980’s then again on TV over the years. So seeing it in full scope should be different over the lousy panned and scanned versions on TV.

I’m wonder how good the remix is not that I’m into remixes unless its really done well. There are mono mixes for Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian there might be some sounds like effects or Foley that might give me a hint.

Contact (1997) seen it at the cinema in SR-D then brought the laserdisc and regret selling it. I brought the DVD to replace it and no the bluray isn’t going to replace the DVD. I expect they’ll be some small differences with picture. I’m wondering if the mix is the same as region 2 it rarely does go down low only low at high levels but not necessarily way below 20Hz.

[JBL 4645]

You love it. You’re a afraid you’ll really miss a good run.
Sandman

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run

Life might seem perfect in this little utopia of the 23rd century but there is only one catch, your life must end on your 30th birthday in the carousel where you will be reborn. Or you can running to find a place called sanctuary on the outside of the domed cities or face the Sandmen that track you down and terminate your life on the spot, for failure to turn yourself in at the carousel.

There is remake in the works for 2012 release no doubt in 3D well they can keep it. It would be best to re-release the original in cinemas as it was exhibited with 5 screen and mono surround. The remake seems like a poor excuse for CGI lousy sound design and fake 3D.


Logan’s Run regionFree arrived week before last as I was getting pissed off with DOLBY STEREO 424 matrix version on region2 DVD where Warner Bros lied about it being DOLBY 5.1 print error my foot!

Well the regionFree leaves in the region2 in dust. Discreteness of 4 primary channels not 5 since the 5.1 is duplicating the monaural surround and duel rather than outputting it as single channel with left-centre right-centre hence two channels are a bit of waste here. I find the LFE.1 okay exciting making the dramatic action scenes rumble or the opening of Jerry Goldsmith score pressing on my body with deeper musical notes.

Sound effects, Foley and dialogue panning follows the onscreen action where the performer is located on the screen dialogue is positioned to that specific area and cerates a more believable sound performance in my personal opinion with Todd-AO process. This recoding technique is hardly used today which makes films sound dull and lifeless even 3D films where duologue is centred with maybe only one or two scenes where its panned.

The solo voice dialogue on Logan’s Run is spread across all three fronts or five for the cinema with half pans positioned for left-centre or right-centre. With the DVD/bluray DOLBY 5.1 version half pans kinder float between left and centre or centre and right.

I have second Yamaha DSR70Pro coming so I’m a few steps away from matrix 70mm five-screen fronts with the few 30 r more tiles out of small 1500 titles on optical disc.

Discrete sound effects are clearer and only come in as and when on the mix over some of the fake 5.1 mixes that I have no thanks to Warner Bros of Sony pictures I could send those discs back with foot up there ass!

I haven’t looked at the film in 1080i on the LCD projector yet I can see the image is sharper than the DVD which has EE edging the regionFree seems free of edging maybe a bit soft so possible mild usage of DNR.

Extras are the same as the region2 DVD audio commentate and behind the scenes, look into the 23rd century and trailer.

[JBL 4645]

The gizmo came rushing and rushing though time space warp week before last WOW seeing the film in scope 2.35:1 over the VHS rental panned and scanned in the late 80’s is plus. DOLBY STEREO 4.2.4 matrix works okay plenty of vintage Dolby low end that rumbled the living room while pressing on my body with few scenes made it far exciting than 24 years ago.

This is kinder cult classic its not hard to find unless you buy the wrong version as the region2 is panned and scanned with mono sound WTF! Yeah nice going Buna Vista you Muppets!

The disc comes as flipper no not the dolphin, flipper with scope on side A while side B is panned and scanned both sides have DOLBY STEREO.

My Science Project has had multiple viewings over, some over rated lousy bluray titles like Tron Legacy if the film was in DOLBY TrueHD 7.1 chances are it might still be playing today.

I gave MSP a quick view on LCD projector on Pioneer DV515 looked a bit rough due to image being blown-up maybe DOLBY TrueHD bluray might come around one day NOT least not in DOLBY sigh sodden dts!